Chiguru Farms – A date with the stars and organic farming

Our daughter has always been interested and fascinated by Astronomy. When one of our friend mentioned about this star gazing event happening around 2 hours drive from Bangalore, it caught our immediate attention. We were introduced to Mr.Vijay Kapoor, the force behind this astronomical adventure. He helped us book the almost final seats for the event, tent experience seemed interesting. The drive from our apartment in North Bangalore to Chiguru farms on Saturday was quite peaceful, very serene once we hit the country side, although we did feel the landscape was quite dry. We reached Chiguru farm at around 1pm, parked our car and were invited inside, we had a glass each of Lime juice with Jaggery, quite welcoming I must say. Soon Mr.Raghu, the farm owner and our passionate host came and introduced himself. The entire place had an amazing rustic feel to it, and we were already excited.

The lunch was soon served on a Banana leaf, and a fantastic mix of dishes, all made out of home grown vegetables and cereals were unleashed. We all loved the food, rice roti with Pumpkin dish, sweet Obbatu was really royal, home grown white rice with Obbatu sambar and Tamarind rice were nice too. After the lunch, we went into the open library area, housing both the books and indoor games. What caught my eye was this interesting looking wooden game of Navakangari. I thought it was another game from Channapatna, but Raghu clarified this game was from Tamilnadu. He was more than willing to teach us this game, it was truly fantastic; simple yet challenging, with a unique mix of chess and tic-tac-toe strategies. Although the lunch made us a bit drowsy, we managed to challenge our brains for a while, until Raghu invited us for a tractor ride.

The tractor ride was quite thrilling; fresh open air with slight wind, coasting along a country side road, overlooking various farms and cute little man-made structures was a 15-20 mins time very well spent. After the ride, we went to the camp site where Mr.Vijay was already busy setting up his enormous telescope for our first anatomical sight seeing event; we would be looking at the surface of our sun more deeply. With effective queuing up system, we all managed to have a peek into the dark spots on our otherwise clean sun. It was quite an experience.

We were handed out our tents, sleeping bags and mats. Vijay explained the simple art of pitching tents and helped one family to pitch their tent, a wonderful demo indeed. We then all got to work; everyone excitedly pitching their tents. The hammer was quite slowly moving hands, most of us went with typical Indian Jugaad mentality of using a hard rock to drive the 4 pegs into the ground. Soon the tents were ready. We just stood there amazed at how easy it was to pitch tents, a great learning for all of us.

It was time for the pottery session. All of us got our hands dirty in making (or atleast we got an impression that we had some impact) some nice little pottery artifacts. Kids thoroughly enjoyed this session, one asking for a flower vase, another for a pencil holder and so on. The sun was soon setting, and Vijay asked us all to assemble in the library area to introduce himself and his astronomical club. The kids were again well engaged by asking questions related to the outer space, with right answers fetching them chocolates. Session was engaging, although it had to be hurried, as our prime attraction, one Mr.Jupiter would set soon and we had to hurry back to the camp site.

We lined up again for the next event, the major sighting, Jupiter, it couldn’t get any bigger than this. Today we could see the Jupiter with its 4 moons, it was spectacular. Unluckily the clouds soon engulfed this gas giant, and some of us didn’t manage to see the massive planet. As the clouds didn’t seem like moving anytime soon, Vijay moved his telescope to the Red fellow besides us, Planet Mars. Interesting thing about his telescope stand was that once it was latched on to the pole star, it was simply a command on the computer software to move the telescope automatically. Mars, owing to its size, didn’t look that spectacular, only a dot in the sky.

Dinner was soon ready by 8pm, so it was decided to hunt for more interesting space objects after the dinner. Dinner, again was very nice; Chapati, dal, lemon rice, rice and Obbatu saar, Yogurt. There was campfire too, another brilliant way of engaging the kids. After the dinner break, we were back to the camp site. The weather gods weren’t so favorable on us today, it was mostly cloudy sky; but we did manage to sight the bright star Sirius (almost looked like diamond in the sky), the Orion constellation and its clouds, multiple moving satellites with naked eye. The moon was expected at 11:15pm, but with low sighting probability, Vijay asked us to sleep off and check out this on Sunday early morning, before the sun rise.

Night inside the tent was quite nice; though occasionally getting cold, and disturbed by neighbor’s snores :-). Woke up at around 5:30am to see Vijay all ready to show us the craters on the moon. We soon lined up and saw the amazing craters on the moon, it was very nice, moon ever so bright and elegant. After the moon, the telescope moved to the saptarishi formation, and zoomed in on the dual stars of Vashista and Arundathi. The ISS (International Space Station) paid us a visit soon at around 6:20am. The star gazing was soon wrapped up, and we were invited for some chai (tea) with rusk (hard baked bread).

After the quick bite, we went for a farm visit. It was at this time that I saw the gleaming passion on Raghu’s face, explaining the fundamentals of organic farming, the strategy employed and ultimate goal behind it became evidently clear. I don’t think I personally heard anyone explaining organic farming in such brilliant way; It really seemed like his true calling. His passion was organic farming, for himself and how he could get others excited about this as well.

Farm visit wasn’t the typical monotonous routine of showing this tree or that plant. It was much more engaging, especially for the kids. He took us to the paddy fields and explained how they did crop rotation for the effective soil mineral constitution. Next up was the Banyan tree, VataVraksha in Sanskrit, kids enjoyed climbing the tree, hanging on the branches, with adults joining soon. He talked about why Banyan tree was so highly revered: For its longevity and high amount of oxygen. He soon let out a fun fact; When the Portuguese traders came to India, they saw the Baniyas (the merchant class) doing all their business under these huge trees, they named it Baniya tree and then it rolled up into the Banyan tree; interesting trivia.

Next he took us to his Areca nut plantation, brought out a fallen trunk, a kid could sit on the dried part and the leafy part could be used to drag this “Toboggan”. Kids were absolutely delighted playing this village-specific outdoor game. He then took us to Food forest, a miniforest full of trees made specially for the pests, so that they are busy in this park, without impacting the commercial crops. This was effective pest management keeping the circle of life intact. It was clear that something’s in life cannot be prevented; it can only be managed. There was this Bay leaf tree with Cinnamon stem, fig tree that was the core part of the entire ecosystem. Summer Raagi was growing at its own speed; interestingly Raagi takes very little water. All in all, it was fantastic farm tour; something that would make me come back again.

After the nice morning walk, it was time for the breakfast, which was simply amazing, the best of all the three meals we had here so far. Thatte Idli with delicious sambar and chutney, moong halwa was light and smooth. We bought some Raagi flour and turmeric powder, bid farewell to all the lovely friends we made here during this 2 day session. The entire trip went well beyond our expectations, and we came back more grateful and knowledgeable than before. The inspirational duo of Raghu and Vijay did nudge us to go beyond our comfort zone and devote time and energy into our passion and true calling. I was curious how Vijay juggled between his job and his passions; his answer – everybody has the same 24 hours, its just a matter of right prioritization. The point was bang on; we really need to evaluate where we spend our free time. Lot of learning, motivation and complete fun. As Raghu put it, the trip was truly fun and useful. Looking forward to another visit to this beautiful organic farm!